Crowd gathering for Seimas election

  • 2012-08-12

VILNIUS – August 10 marks the deadline for registration as an independent participant of the political campaign for the Oct. 14 general elections in Lithuania, reports ELTA. Contrary to previous election campaigns, the current one involves many more new political parties - a total of 6, said the Central Electoral Commission of Lithuania (VRK).

Chairman of the VRK Zenonas Vaigauskas said that by Friday morning a total of 406 independent participants, 27 political parties and 336 candidates put forward by parties, and 43 self-nominated candidates, have been registered.
“I think that the number of candidates will change slightly, whereas parties most probably will not change. In fact, previously only one, sometimes 2, new parties would run for general elections, while now we have 6 of them. The main parties remained unchanged,” he said.

This year, 6 new parties will try to secure seats at the Seimas: Drasos Kelias (The Way of Courage, leader Neringa Venckiene), the Emigrants’ Party (leader Juozas Murauskas), the political party Sajunga TAIP (the Union YES, leader Arturas Zuokas), the Lithuanian People’s Party (leader Vladimir Romanov), the Democratic Party of Labor and Unity (leader Kristina Brazauskiene) and the Union of the Fighters for Lithuania (leader Vytautas Sustauskas).
The political campaign started on April 11. The majority of campaigners are from the Labor Party and the Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats.

Political campaign participants have been registered at all single-member constituencies.
The VRK notes that political campaigns can be funded by political party funds, personal funds of a candidate in an amount up to 43,500 litas (12,600 euros), donations by natural persons (up to 21,750 litas) to a participant of a political campaign, and by bank interest on the money in a bank account of a political campaign.

The Seimas has 141 members who are elected to a 4 year term. A total of 71 members are elected in single-seat constituencies, while the remaining 70 members are elected by proportional representation. Lithuania has a multi-party system.